our two senators, senator feinstein and senator boxer so women are empowered in california. i'm also want to acknowledge that although our numbers are great here, two of our colleagues have gone on to the senate, senator-elect tammy baldwin and we're very proud of that. [ applause ] senator-elect macy hirano, only the second woman of color to serve in the senate. that's pretty exciting and unfortunately we won't have kathy hochul and betty sutton in this next congress, but the future is soon and coming upon us and we know they will be making a great public contribution. so here we are in the past week since the election, we're still finishing up some of our campaigns, we're very proud of the success as i said yesterday and as you see here today. why is it important for us to make this statement of the strength of women in the congress of the united states? of the house democratic women? because this is where the hopes and dreams of america's families are riding. they may not know that. they may not know one party from the next and the rest but we know that without rosa we wo